I am an evil giraffe. Who no longer blogs about politics.

In an interview with The Huffington Post, the Nevada Democrat savaged Bill Magwood, a member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, when asked if he thought the Democrat had a chance to become NRC chairman.

“You know, when you’re in this government, this business of politics, the only thing that you have is your word,” said Reid, seated in his Capitol office. “I can be as partisan as I have to be, but I always try to be nice. I try never to say bad things about people. Bill Magwood is one of the” — Reid paused, deciding which adjective to reach for, before picking them all — “most unethical, prevaricating” — he paused again, this time for 10 full seconds — “incompetent people I’ve ever dealt with. The man sat in that chair — right there — and lied to me. I’ve never, ever in my life had anyone do that. Never.”

Actually, Reid, people lie to you all the time. It’s just that usually you don’t catch them doing it to you.

Read the rest, even if it’s HuffPo: Reid completely loses his professionalism and dignity as a Senator in this one. It’s funny! Particularly when he starts swearing.

The DC has the scoop*: Congress is now investigating whether the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) actually had the authority to unilaterally shut down the Yucca Mountain nuclear storage facility without Congressional authorization, given that Yucca Mountain was authorized under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982. Furthermore, there are now serious questions about whether the NRC’s leadership – and, by extension, the Obama administration – is ignoring the actual science of the situation in favor of petty and crasss partisan politics.

This is the key paragraph, I think: it describes the background to the sudden quashing in November 2010 of a safety report on the facility.

Dr. Janet Kotra, the deputy office director responsible for drafting the [Yucca Mountain] safety evaluation, known as the Safety Evaluation Report (SER), wrote in an internal memo that [NRC Chair {and Reid crony} Gregory] Jaczko unilaterally instructed his staff to “move to orderly closure of NRC’s Yucca Mountain program.” This is despite the fact the Nuclear Waste Policy Act remains in effect and the full commission has yet to rule on whether the Department of Energy can legally withdraw the license application.

The combination of CPAC and a reduced feeling of urgency delayed this for a couple of days, but here are the numbers for January. Short version: RNC over DNC, effective ties (as in, less than 10K/20K differences ) for the Congressional and Senatorial committees, and the Democrats retain their cash-on-hand advantage.

It’s that time again. Short version: the RNC & NRSC beat out their Democratic counterparts – which is odd, considering that they’re the groups giving the Republican base the most aggravation; the NRCC pulled in less than the DCCC; the Democrats have a pretty good COH advantage (although the RNC spent a bunch of money in November); and the Democrats apparently aren’t planning to retire their debt.

As promised. Short version: DNC beat RNC, NRSC edged DSCC, DCCC edged NRCC, and cash on hand would worry me more if the GOP hadn’t just removed the NJ & VA governorships from the Democrats and essentially handed NY-23 as part of a unfortunate but necessary life lesson to the GOP leadership.